''Officer, I swear that I just get off to reading about tax evasion.''

The trouble with faking your death is that after it’s all over, you’re still you. Were you running from circumstances that found you arbitrarily? No. You were running from a situation you put yourself in, one that you let build around you so slowly that you didn’t even realize it was happening. You were the frog in the pot, you were the hand turning on the heat of the stove, you were the water. You were the problem.

And what becomes of you after the coast guard drags your waterlogged “body” out of the Atlantic? Maybe you move around a bit, maybe check out the other coast for a while. Unaware of that dark cloud following you. Maybe you change your age, you still look young, no one would notice if you knocked a year or two off. And that dark cloud is growing. Maybe you start doodling cartoons in your spare time, and it accidentally builds a modest audience. That dark cloud is ready to bust wide open.

Maybe you search for the bravery to admit who you really are on your fart joke cartoon website, but you’re lost in the storm around you. Maybe you’re not strong enough…

BUT NOT ME, MY REAL NAME’S DALE BERNARD SIMMONS OF PLAINSVIEW, IDAHO AND I FAKED MY DEATH IN 1992 TO KEEP MY WIFE FROM FINDING OUT I FLUSHED HER MINIATURE POODLE DOWN THE CRAPPER.

Some of us aren’t surprised by this. Some of us knew. Some of us have been following you for years under different names. Some of us have been laughing at your attempts to craft a new life given that the poodle clawed its way back out the next day, leaving your stricken wife none the wiser!